The Camel Toe by Cory Surfboards
"Just surf it like a normal board. Don't think about the design." So said the designer of the Camel Toe, Cory Russell, before I took his new creation for a ride. And if 'ignoring the design' sounds simple in theory it's a hell of a lot harder when you lay your eyes on the critter.
From a front end that resembles a standard full-volumed fish, the Camel Toe takes a sudden unexpected turn around the midpoint. It's there that the rail outline bends toward the stringer and then back out again creating an inverted rail curve. This is the predominant feature of the Camel Toe although there's many other surprises lurking in its curves. I tried to take Cory's advice and put them all of them out of mind when I took it for a surf.
Although the model I rode was only 5'8" long most of the volume is in the front end so paddling and catching waves isn't particularly difficult. In fact it was easier than my standard 6'0" shorty. Because of the front loaded volume, which is mixed with a low rocker, the board generates a lot of front foot speed. Not surprisingly the deepest concave is found under the front foot. The board, therefore, gets a lot of lift and performs very fast horizontally.
The kicker comes when turning off the bottom. Unlike many fish-type shapes, which want to stay on a horizontal plain, the Camel Toe has a fierce inclination to go vertical when back foot pressure is applied. Exaggerated tail lift in the final twelve inches of the board is one of the curves I mentioned earlier and it allows the board to change from the X to Y axis in a flash.
The overwhelming feeling is a board of two halves - low rockered and full-volume at the front for down the line speed, while the tail is drawn, concaved and lifted so it's loose and twitchy in the pocket. In that regard it's like a 'cut and shut' auto job - front and back halves welded together. The trick is to transition from front to back foot at the right time to get maximum effect out of each half.
But what about the inverted rail? After I'd ridden it a few times I asked Cory and he explained it as a way to "reduce the width and water that can be trapped between the riders feet." Isolating single design attributes is difficult but the unusual rail curve appears to serve its intended purpose. Once the Camel Toe is in the pocket it's an amazingly slippery little sucker – lightning fast and loose as you like. But it's also around this aspect that some of its shortcomings become apparent. The shorter turning arc doesn't allow for long, driving or extended turns. Granted they're not the type of turns you'd be doing in the waves the Toe is suited for, but it's worth noting even if only to understand how the board rides.
While testing I swapped fins from FCS M5's to a larger base G-AM to add more drive. The change was immediately noticeable. A fin template featuring more area would ramp it up another notch. Reducing the tail lift - something Cory said may happen in future models - would also add more drive, though it would stiffen the ride. A happy (happier?) medium may yet be found.
As it stands the Camel Toe responds well to short, stomping snaps and backfoot jams. Turns that pivot and throw the tail rather than turns that follow an arc. The trick, as mentioned earlier, is to transition the board from front to back foot while tight in the pocket. The pronounced tail lift also gives the board a lot of 'pop' off the lip or foam, something that younger surfers could take advantage of more than older surfers looking for glide. This is a hi-performance board after all.
It's hard to imagine that the Camel Toe will ever become a popular design without a celebrity push or endorsement. It's too unconventional looking, ugly even. But that's the way it had to be according to Cory. While formulating the design in his head he shunned all aesthetics and focussed only on function and performance. If the end product turned out to be an ugly duckling then the thing had better fly. Fortunately for Cory the Camel Toe does just that.
PS: Here's a short vid of one of the first sessions on a Camel Toe down in Jan Juc. PPS: The fella with the red-tailed Camel Toe in the photos above is Cahill Bell-Warren.
Comments
Click 'enlarge' on the photos above if you wanna get a better look at the Camel Toe. It's hard to get the gist of it till you see it in 3D but shots 1 & 2 give a fair representation of what's happening through the back half of the board.
Some other pics here: http://swllnt.com/zkqDy0
That scoop looks like a reverse flyer.
doesn't maurice cole have a model called the camel toe ? ?
Maurice Cole doesn't have a Camel Toe, he has a Metro and a Pro Tow.
'Maurice Cole doesn't have a Camel Toe'
Sorry, just wanted to see that written one more time! Bahahahaha...
maurice almost did,---but called it something very similiar in french i believe......brutus please correct me if im wrong.
yeah MC used this name a couple of years ago for bds that have the back 2' of the board scooped out,so as the back foot is anchored in a semi concave shaped deck....and also increases the torque in the back 1/2 of the board. looks like a big "S"deck or the CT....
cory's design is completely differents based on one of those GSI...wankenburgers...looks like a mini-me version!
Hopefully Mr Cory doesn't try to patent the name Camel Toe. Always a shame when businessmen try to own a piece of pop culture for their pwn trademarked selves. Witness 'ugg boots' or the bastards that tried to take 'budgie smuggler'. No capital letters, no rights reserved.
I wonder how long before we see a "moose knuckle" board....
Hey MC...I mean Brutus. Your funny, talking about yourself in the third person through an alias? Classic!
Whilst I am aware of the meyerhoffer longboard design the camel toe is definitely not a miniature version of it. I do not lay claim to a surfboard with an inverted outline however the way the Camel Toe uses different elements of surfboard design together is unique.
I am more than happy to any questions anyone may have about the Camel Toe.
when I was about 12 I shaped a board that looked like that.
one afternoon, as I was putting in the finishing touches, Doris walked into the shaping bay, shook his head and walked out.
Yeah but, how'd it go??
not real flash.
it was unanimously decided shaping would be left to the professionals.
if brutus does have a camel toe then that surgery in the u.s. went horribly wrong.
drouyn may have one by now.
actually I have to go back to the US for more treatment and am thinking of getting CT grafted on my bunghole.......maybe even a nice set of tits.....ah the joys of modern medicine.....
does anyone have a photo of a MP "fangtail" .
they were dangerous, if nothing else.
here ya go, found one, MP "fangtail"...
http://www.oceanartwork.com/news/michael-peterson-classic-old-collectibl...
now theres an idea...I remember MP and TP pulled up in front of watercooled ,easter 76?.....with what we called the Xmas tree tails,one was still unsanded,so our sander nearly had a fucken meltdown when he saw em......we always thought if ya ever got into a beef in the water......ya had a s/bd come dangerous weapon.....!
carefull brutus ,rottmouth is still watching this site when he reads that hes gonna want you even more...was it the 75 pa bendall m.p. won on that triple flyer fangtail ?
Weapons be damned. It's an ideal board to take camping, that Fangtail. Could open yer tins of baked beans with that thing.
I can only imagine the relief sanders must've felt that the Fangtail never took off. Make 6 deep clinker channels feel like a window job.
around the time of the tri-fin dawn, we there was this crazy sander guy who "invented" the 7 finer, and called it the "baracuda".
7 small fins all the same size, one in the center and 3 down each rail.
rode it once, it went like shit, all skatey cos the fins had no depth, and I swear it tried to saw my leg off.
the "baracuda" woulda smashed the shit outa the "fangtail".
yeah Vic.......don't give me up to rotty....luv being able to ask questions and comments about myself in thne 3rd person...rotty might actually come back to us all if he found out....
he was a good sander.
but ya know, 7 fins -fixed-...???
you'd think a sander would have known better.
3/4 inch concave fang tail tow board ? how would it go ?
forget rottencramps, I'm sure he's busy screaming at the mirror on twitter.
Sid,
Reminds me of a board shaped by a bloke I know on the Sunny Coast. He shaped a 6-finner as an experimental type thing - nothing serious. He then received official looking letters informing him of copyright infringement. Turns out the design for the 6-fin board is owned by someone who protects it stringently.
No-one owns the single fin idea. The twinnie is free. The thruster is a free for all, as is the quad. The five fin design is anyones. But the six fin is copyrighted and can only be shaped under license - if at all.
Let that be a warning to fin happy designers...
there ya go, well I'll be fucked by a baracuda fangtail.
has someone informed backbeach ?
or maybe BB holds the patent ? mmmm.
If someone remade those MP Fangtails I reckon they'd sell like mull-cakes. Fuck knows they'd be hard to sand and finish so maybe pop out some epoxy versions. Get GSI to do it!
The GSI MP Fangtail - you know it makes absolutely no sense. Which is why it'd be a winner.
Is that you riding popping the air Stu?
Nice work Cory, for me it evokes taking the front end of an old single fin (complete with widepoint well forward) and grafting it a thruster tail. Paddle and performance, I am sure there's a lot more to it than that. Nice to see the use of an S deck. Having snow groms, I was wondering what affect concave rail outlines would have on boards.
If that's what you think Johnno, then that's what I want you to think.
PS: The answer is in one of the postscripts.
G,day
If anyone new what was really going on they would call this INWard curve its proper name which is sidecut as in snowsurfing. My name is Mick Mackie and have been using its benefits through the tails of my flextail fish for fifteen or so years. Hayden got his ideas for that FF Warren Smith thing from me years ago I got it from a 1975 winterstick snowboard. It actually looks and works sweeter running out through the tail not up in the planshape. This combined with flex is the future of modern surfing. Flex gives you the flick and sidecut gives you the drive and speed through your turns.--Enjoy.
think it was 75 when MP won the Pa, it was in small Kings beach I think...quite possibly the same comp Keith Paul had some fun on mushies ???...the good ol fangtail, moonrocket, Xmas trees, I shaped one 5 years back and just might do another....now back to the camel toe...